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This is the beginning of my MF mission, so I thought I'd start a diary...

We've been umming and aahing about whether to stay in our current house or move over the past year. We think we're going to stay for now, at least for a couple more years, so now is the time to start hammering down the mortgage.

I've checked our balance and we owe £178,914 and we have exactly 27.5 years to go on the mortgage and 2.5 on the fixed deal we have. We took out a 30 year mortgage when we bought the property as we were about to have a baby and wanted a more comfortable level of payment whilst I was on maternity leave. However 2.5 years later, I'm back at work nearly full time and our finances are in a much better position than when we took out the mortgage.

I've got about £300 spare each month that I'm going to chuck at the mortgage. In the next couple of months I'll have finished paying off my student loan so will have about £125 back each month which will also go to the mortgage. I'm also in the process of inheriting part of a joint btl which will give net about £200 a month net so that'll also be for the mortgage when probate is finalised.

We also have another btl and owe approx £70k but make a reasonable amount each month from this. The profit from this and my OH are going to clear this mortgage as it makes a good profit but it won't be very good once the mortgage tax relief is scrapped. Once this is paid off, the profits will go on the main house mortgage.

I've got some money saved up to buy a new car, as mine is getting pretty temperamental now, although I've just spent £200 to get it through the mot. I've also got a small contingency fund and some money set aside for a few things I'm planning to get in the next year. Once I did my sums I realised I had a little money spare.

So today, I've made a payment of £389.01 off the mortgage! Yippee, it should knock one month off!

I'm hopefully going to keep this diary up to date to keep me motivated. We think that we could pay off both in about ten years, so that's the loose plan!

Thanks - these are the kinds of tips that don't seem obvious but yes, the pennies mount up.

Okay, so I have a gym membership (which I definitely get value from) but I also never ever shower at home - i always shower at the gym or maybe sometimes at work. Their heat, their water, their soap. I don't do it because it's all free there - I do it because I can.

They definitely do add up, and showering at the gym makes good use of your membership as well. I'm more into running than the gym, but I've been washing my running kit with me in the shower after I've finished a run and trying to stretch a t shirt and shorts for more than one run - not easy in the heat! I also have got into the habit of turning the shower off whilst I'm lathering up my hair or putting on conditioner etc. I'm on a meter so the savings do count.

I've been doing some research into sim only deals and think it's the right way to go, as I have a reasonable personal phone out of contract and a work iPhone with unlimited use that no one ever monitors, so don't need loads of data etc. I tend to use my iPad more than my phone anyway, so I'm not a heavy user. There are lots of suitable deals for less than £5 per month, so will sort that out soon.

However, I've been driving around with loads of heavy files in my car for work, so they're probably worse than the buggy. At least I get paid mileage for this!

I've been doing money saving things every day this week, including popping home to make my lunch when a day-long work event with lunch was cancelled at short notice, paying in a £10 cheque I've had in my purse for months, working an additional day, click and collecting my shopping rather than paying a pound for deliveries, and rolling up our sleeves today and cleaning our entire rental flat ourselves after our tenants moved out and didn't bother even attempting to tidy. We've got new tenants moving in on Tuesday so we're charging the old ones the going rate for last minute cleaners and paying ourselves for our time at £15 per hour.

I've been reading MMM a bit more and worked out that once the mortgage is paid off and when I no longer need 4 days a week plus childcare, I will only need about £900 a month to live a similar lifestyle to my existing. My partner would need a bit more, but not much. Given we're pulling in approx £1100 a month in rent on our btls after mortgages collectively already, this seems entirely feasible. Makes me realise that FI and ER may well be closer than I thought and is a real possibility. Indeed, when I started this diary, I was all for increasing our borrowing to get a better house. Now the idea of dramatically reducing how much we work sounds very attractive.

We've used the inheritance to pay off most of the flat mortgage, so will now start hammering down the house mortgage. We should have more to throw at it now and are saving harder.

1. To take lunch with me to work every single day until next September unless there is a free or on expenses lunch at work (hence popping home to make lunch when my work event was cancelled).

2. Not using my tumble drier for clothes at all for a year. I'm excepting drying pillows from this as I usually wash them a couple of times a year and they require tumbling. I've got a washer drier so don't use the drier much, but will ban myself from any useage at all (except pillows).

I'm working hard on cutting costs. Today I phoned up Vodafone to get my PAC number to switch to a Virgin sim only deal for £5.00 a month. They offered me the same deal for £4.50 on a 12 month contract, so I'm well happy with that. I've not officially upgraded for 4 years, so I've been chucking £11.25 a month away for ages for no reason. I have an iPhone for work which is unlimited and not monitored, so I don't need fancy upgrades, just a basic deal and have I have a reasonable personal phone.

I'm slightly annoyed that I've forked out £35 already to get my phone unlocked for Virgin, but the savings make up for it in 3 months.

I've got all my annual insurances etc coming up for renewal soon, so will really work on minimising costs. So far, that's a 72% reduction on my first bill, so hope I can make great savings on the rest!

In other money saving news, my DS, who is 3 this month, has finally done his first wee in a potty. He usually cries, throws a tantrum and wees on the carpet if potty training is even mentioned, so this has given me hope that nappies will be gone in the near future. I can't wait - for many reasons!

This isn't my first dealing with the SLC, I had one of the original student loans from an earlier attempt at university, though thankfully I only took out one year so I only owed them about £1,000. Just before I went to university the second time I decided to pay off the balance. In a he period between them telling me how much it would be and them receiving my cheque I managed to accrue 8p interest which they persued me relentlessly for. I don't have a high opinion of them!

Hi there, I'm just reading through your diary and I saw this. The SLC drives me nuts! I paid it off two years ago, but they calculated the owed interest wrong and I was left with £1.23 still to pay. I tried to pay this online, but they won't accept anything under a fiver, call them and get told the same thing. So now I have to wait for it to get to that level before I can pay it off.....so so frustrating!

I feel your pain, the SLC are awful. I'm so glad I've finished my dealings with them now.

I was on track to save over £1000 this month... Until my sons nursery decided to increase his fees by more than £120 a month, despite him moving up to a supposedly cheaper age category next week! I've queried it, as I wasn't expecting that at all.

So today, my OH and I have been making future plans about how to get rid of this mortgage and what to do next... The good news is, he's fully on board, rather then just pretty much on board. If we mange to both save consistently and chuck it at the mortgage, we'll aim to get it paid off by October 2021... Just five years away.

That'll open so many options for us, undecided at present, but will be exciting to see where it takes us!

Today has been quite productive. I've opened up a Nationwide Flexdirect which will allow me to save up to £2500 at 5%. I'm also going to open up TSB Classic which will allow me to save £2000 also at 5%. I can also use a HSBC Regular saver at 5% for £250 per month. Everything else will go to the mortgage, as it is hanging around in a 1.1% ISA doing nothing at the moment.

The mortgage interest is 3.98% so the savings beat it, so it makes sense not to put the whole lot into the mortgage. That'll keep me access to a reasonable sum if my car conks out, which is my biggest worry.

We've also been scrumping for apples near our house today and made an apple and blackberry crumble for tea. My son enjoyed picking the apples, and we didn't feel too bad about the scrumping as our house is surrounded by fields earmarked for development (our estate is new), so they're not being farmed. I'd like to go on a foraging course to see what else I can scrump!

I've also taken another £2k out of my cash savings and put it towards the mortgage. We're now under £170k! Next month it'll be £10k off the capital paid off since we started overpaying (combined with regular monthly payments). That's starting to sound like serious money now!

Thanks, it's all starting to mount up now, and it looks like some progress is being made!

I've decided to try to fix the issues I have with my car rather than buy a new one. I've got a problem with demisting - the car just keeps steaming up over and over again.

My plan for the weekend is to run a Dehumidifier in there to make sure there's no water, and to put some demister on the window. It should have a heated screen, but this has never worked, so I'm seeing if this is an easy repair... I'm hoping it's just a faulty or loose wire somewhere. Definitely worth an investigation before I buy a new car.

Saying that, my car is only worth a few hundred pounds, so I'm not going to spend very much on fixing it!

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